Town Square

Rumsfeld to take position at Hoover Institution

Original post made
on Sep 9, 2007

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, one of the architects of the Iraq War, has been appointed a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, the institution announced Friday.

Posted by Patriot
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Sep 9, 2007 at 11:31 pm

Reading this, no one can doubt that Stanford is mightily committed to diversity.

In selecting Rumsfeld for Hoover status, Stanford has reached to the bottom of the barrel to balance out the mostly brilliant and positive contributors to humanity that operate from their wonderous institution. What a blight on the record of an otherwise fine institution!

Rumsfield definitely belongs in a tower - along with another doubtful non-hero, George Schultz) - but it's doubtful that anyone who has followed their horrific, power-mongering careers - careers that claim "success" over the blood-stained bodies of their hapless victims - would imagine for a minute that any tower they inhabit wouldn't be surrounded by guards - to keep the both of them and their poor-excuse-for-strategic-thinking ideas as far away from the rest of humanity as possible.

Posted by Neighbor
a resident of Barron Park
on Sep 10, 2007 at 2:02 pm

Unbelievable! Why doesn't he go back to Georgetown University Law Center, hurry up and finish his law degree, and get nominated by our President to the Supreme Court of the United States... instead of hanging out in our neighborhood.

Posted by TheHorror
a resident of Green Acres
on Sep 10, 2007 at 3:53 pm

He certainly did rock Iraq. And the Iraqis are still being drummed into the ground. I suppose I should never be surprised by anything the Hoover Institution does, but this move is truly stunning. It underscores how the Hollow Men of Hoover are even more focused on taking care of their own than they are on protecting the facade of quasi respectability they've managed to build around their shabby institution.

Unfortunately, John "Torture Memo" Yee is now a law professor at Berkeley's Boalt Hall.

You'd expect this sort of revolting situation from Stanford. Don't forget that in addition to Rummy, the Hoover has hired war criminal General John Abizaid, too. He's the CENTCOM general who came after Franks before Petreaus. In other words, the people of Fallujah were genocided under Abizaid's leadership, including reports of white phosphorous attacks on citizens.

But to have John Yee at Cal makes me wonder who smoothed the way for this monster in the UC system.

Wouldn't it be grand if Cal hired Norm Finkelstein now that he has been denied tenure at DePaul in the wake of a distortion campaign led by Harvard's Dershowitz...

Posted by Dr. Ferragamo
a resident of Stanford
on Sep 11, 2007 at 10:31 am

The Hoover Institute, along with dozens of other think tanks, form a vast, incestuous network that fills its ranks with individuals who wear many hats. Moving freely from think tank to think tank, these individuals are also allowed move freely from public sector to private sector and back again.

These same think-tankers make a point to teach/recruit in elite schools, play media pundits, participate in "authoritative" studies, and in some cases spend years serving other governments. Before returning to work for the GWB administration, both Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were registered foreign agents who represented the Turkish government!

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis
a resident of Midtown
on Sep 11, 2007 at 5:56 pm

World class folk do world class work. Besides, Rumsfeld landed jets on a carrier deck. That's a hard way to demonstrate one's commitment. The Hoover has a long way to go to offset their failure to develop comprehensive citizens of their students.

"She currently writes for several publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and New York Sun. She is also a frequent commentator on national security issues and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, such as MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and the O'Reilly Factor."

The Manhattan Institute also hired TV pundit Bill Kristol to serve on its board of trustees:

"Kristol first made his mark as leader of the Project for the Republican Future, a conservative think tank, and rose to fame as a conservative opinionmaker during the battle over the Clinton health care plan. In his first of what would become legendary strategy memos circulated among Republican policymakers, Kristol said the party should "kill", not amend or compromise on, the Clinton health care plan. The success of the Clinton proposal, he warned, would "re-legitimize middle-class dependence for 'security' on government spending and regulation," and "revive ... the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests." Kristol's memo immediately became important in uniting Republicans behind total opposition to Clinton's reform plan."

...

"After the Republican sweep of both houses of Congress in 1994 Kristol established, along with neoconservative John Podhoretz and with financing from Rupert Murdoch, the neo-conservative periodical The Weekly Standard. In 1997, he founded, with Robert Kagan, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He is also a member of the neo-conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) from which the Bush administration has borrowed over two dozen members to fill various government offices and panels. Kristol is currently chairman of PNAC and editor of The Weekly Standard.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis
a resident of Midtown
on Sep 12, 2007 at 12:41 pm

People who chose public service will, surprisingly, serve in public service jobs. There are Think Tanks of every frequency of the spectrum. Again, the left wants to silence the right. Understandable, when this week's display of Leftsqueek is compared to rational discourse.